weapons of massdistraction

Feeling absolutely drained, but today was still a much better day than yesterday. At certain points I was even feeling rather accomplished. Sadly that wore off in a hurry. Been utterly useless since getting home. But today’s top five good things?

• A nearly free dinner with my son, with Punch Pizza’s food drive promotion: Bring Food, get Punch Pizza!
• Right after posting about the movie adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” yesterday I found out about Seth Grahame-Smith’s next project, Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter. So excited!
• This week folks have been sending me links about tool using octopuses and hey, pixel squid socks! My cephalopod love is well known.
• A nifty Pacman stop motion video.
• Closing out the evening by watching The Incredibles with my son, for the first time in ages.

Now if only I had my very own Selk bag to cuddle up in.

Too much of parenting is about heartache and heartbreak. In my warped experience, at least. And I don’t just mean my failed pregnancies. What troubles me most with my living son? Problems that anyone faces, with autism or without. Universal life stuff. Like dealing with assholes. There are a lot of assholes out there, of all ages. And many of them breed and raise asshole-ish kids (see: Idiocracy). Kids who grow up picking on and bullying children like my own. Such behavior is baffling to my son. Over the last few years his obliviousness has blossomed into awareness and confusion. Along the way I’ve tried to equip him with some basic advice to help handle it. I can’t keep him in a bubble to protect him from every indignity but I can try to give him the tools to cope on his own. Sadly it seemed like I was talking to myself. Until recently. After one particularly egregious incident at school the children were shown some Stop Bullying Now! videos. They made quite an impact. The little man asked to go to the web site and we’ve been watching a couple videos a night, then thoroughly covering the Q & A section after each. It all echoes advice I’d already given him, but it’s as though he needed to see it in cartoon form to legitimize and internalize my messages. A little bit frustrating, but hey, the kid is visual. I get that. And at least it’s sinking in. Not unlike the social stories we’ve used in the past. Now if I could just arm myself with a laminated card or commission a video for any challenging or confusing social situations that may come along…

In happier news, I submitted my annual calendar order to Qoop the other night. I’ve gotten into the habit of making Twelve-Months-Of-Parker calendars for family members (I mean, c’mon, he is an only child). The boy didn’t mind so much when he was younger but the last couple of years he’s become more camera shy. Thankfully I still managed to amass a great selection of photos of him in 2009. But while selecting which to use I did something a little different this time. I gave him editorial control over the content. After all, he’ll be seeing his face looking down from on high just as much as I will (I usually hang this calendar in our kitchen) so it’s only fair. I allowed him to veto several photos but feel we wound up with an excellent representation of his personality. He’s still my little dynamo.

Bonus: Planning to read Beasts of New York, a children’s book for adults. It is “an urban fantasy about the wildlife of New York City, starring a squirrel protagonist who has to find his way from exile back to his home in Central Park, rescue his mother, and win a war.”
Plus: A sexy Large Hadron Collider photoshoot!
And: I’m really enjoying the new Liars song, Scissor, and looking forward to the full release in March. I do hope they stop in the Twin Cities on their tour. Another band that is, for sure? A Place to Bury Strangers will be playing in Minneapolis on March 18th, 2010. Hooray!

This weekend had a mild case of the hiccups but was still mighty fine. Friday I’d intended to work from home all day but our wifi choked repeatedly. I am completely unable to work without the interwebs, unless performing some sort of interpretive dance will magically take care of my daily support elf/admin elf duties. This seemed unlikely so in to the office we went. At least going there is always fun and, on this day, it meant the boy and I were able to play with my co-worker’s lovely new dog, Luna. Five other good things:

• Saturday my son woke to a snow-less scene outside. This only prompted him to put together the “ingredients” for a snowman, in a sort of Snowman Insta-Kit^TM, for the significant snowfall that will eventually come our way.
• In the midst of Saturday’s tedious errand-running we popped by the Franklin Frolic. We greatly enjoyed seeing many friendly faces, scarfing down some delicious (and free!) vegan foods at Fast & Furless and picking up freshly minted Cake Eater Bakery t-shirts.
• Today we visited with my Dad for the first time in months. While at his place I clarified some key plot points re: the Werewolf Cop novel I am basing on his experiences. I suspect he is both baffled and amused by this pet project of mine. But heck, he’s painting a portrait of me based on a creepy self-portrait I took so I’d say we’re even.
• This afternoon we hung out with my old friends and all of their kids. At one point we were up to a total of nine little rascals in our group. Much of the time was spent with them taking turns on a giant trampoline. Outside. In Minnesota. In December. We are hearty folk.
• Yesterday I discovered the Mad Libs iPhone app. The belly laughs it elicits from my son are unreal. So much hilariousness for us both. Another app I splurged on is CameraBag for Mac. Hopefully I don’t overuse the hell out of it, but the filters are just so much fun!

Naturally I’d already finished my holidaze shopping for the boy when the PERFECT gift presented itself. A Super Mario chess set. Hoping I can get the grandparents to pitch in for it. And I still intend to make paper snowflakes and send out holiday cards and maybe host a Festivus party but December always blows on by so fast. Before you know it we’re all hurting from the collective holiday hangover come January.

Last night I found out my friend Allen at House of Balls did something awesome last weekend. He hosted a Reverend Billy & The Church of Life After Shopping revival last Saturday. And there was another one in St. Paul on Sunday. If only I’d known! Double drat. But I did receive a consolation prize, in the form of a little shoutout from Pee-Wee Herman himself. That made me plenty giddy.

And, inspired by Loobylu, What’s Hot and What’s Not.

Hot

• A behind-the-scenes Onion AV Club interview with Wes Anderson, about the wonderful Fantastic Mr. Fox.
• The Portland Cello Project, with the talented Thao Nguyen. So good!
• Vintage octopus pulp book covers!
• In that same vein, the Parkway Theater’s Saturday matinee series:
  

  Relive an old-time Saturday Matinee out of the 1940s and ’50s! Each week laugh or thrill to a vintage comedy, western, horror, adventure or mystery feature, plus cartoons, shorts and a Sci-Fi serial chapter of “Radar Men from the Moon!” Admission is only $2.00!

• The Toys in the Attic show is at the SOO Vac gallery this Friday night.
• The Walker Art Center is hosting a 10 hour open house this Saturday.

NOT
After a decent day at work I plunged into aggravating after-school mode.

• The incident report I’ve been expecting from my son’s school still wasn’t in the backpack today, even though a teacher sent an email this morning, promising it would be there.
• I stopped by our local library to pick up a book I had on hold but couldn’t locate my library card. Even though I had my driver’s license with me I wasn’t allowed to check the book out. Got home to find my library card in an unlikely place but was in no mood to schlepp back.
• And, worst of all, the little man and I had an awful argument on the way home. Mostly over what I’m making for dinner. Sigh.

In other news, the annual No Coast Craft-O-Rama sale is happening this Friday and Saturday at the Midtown Global Market. I applaud their efforts, but wow, I can’t handle the crowds up in that joint and the acoustics only exacerbate the problem. Saturday sees a less confining event - the first Franklin Frolic. From City Pages:

“This free Seward neighborhood party will feature open studios and galleries, food and drink specials, live music, and free samples throughout the day. Be sure to head over to Triangle Park (26th and Franklin Avenues) at 5 p.m. when officials will light up the park with thousands of twinkling lights. Neighbors and friends can then enjoy fresh roasted chestnuts, listen to music by the Brass Messengers, and watch performances by fire dancers. This may also be your last chance to enjoy inflatables outside during the holiday season. 12-6 p.m.”

Bonus! Between 1pm-5pm there will be vegan grub from rhymes with vegan (whose recipes I was just drooling over yesterday) at Fast and Furless.

Holidays can be hard, especially with our family. Or lack thereof. But we had a surprisingly splendid Thanksgiving. First, at a lovely gathering hosted by Mehgan and Christopher. After an enjoyable afternoon at their place we ventured forth to our annual vegan Thanksgiving, 2009 edition, at the little man’s bio-dad’s house. It was magnificent, as usual. And the rest of the weekend has been pretty swell too.

Friday: The boy insisted on mailing his letter to Santa before anything else. In it he asked for just two things. One, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. And two, a skateboard. But I think Tony Hawk’s Ride for Wii might be a safer option:

Get off the couch and give your thumbs a rest. Tony Hawk: Ride ($120) is a new video game starring the godfather of grinds that utilizes a new hands-free skateboard-like controller. The hoverboard-esque controller packs in accelerometers and motion sensors that get you physically involved in the game, letting you skate around, propel yourself, and trick out just as you would on a normal board. Except no helmet or pads required.

After his letter was properly mailed we went swimming at a nearly empty YWCA. Guess everyone else was out shopping. Then we saw the truly fantastic The Fantastic Mr. Fox (at a theater nowhere near a mall or shopping area of any kind) and enjoyed dinner at E Noodle Cafe. I guess that means I failed at Buy Nothing Day, but ours wasn’t the rampant consumerism sort of spending. Anyhow, when the boy went to bed I continued with my personal Supernatural marathon (I’m nearly done with season two) before turning in myself.

Saturday: Yesterday was spent in pajamas, cleaning and paying bills, before heading out for a walk to our local library. Later we met up with a friend, his daughter and their dogs at Rice Park for a Winter Wonderland tree lighting event (the company and fireworks were cool, the rest was schmaltzy). I then spent my Saturday night curled up with a book I’d grabbed at the library. I wound up reading Frag Box, set in downtown St. Paul, cover to cover in one sitting.

Sunday: This morning began with blueberry pancakes and a Bill & Ted double header. The sequel arrived yesterday via Netflix (but I also ordered a copy for the kid for Xmas). I’d forgotten how awful it really is, but the boy insisted I watch it with him. There were other things I’d wanted to do with my day but I’ve been scaling back our plans because I feel kind of cruddy. Grocery shopping will need to be done at some point but I will be laying low for a spell. Possibly reading Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder.

And tomorrow it will be back to the grind. Which means no more wearing pajamas until well after noon. Instead I’ll be back to putting pants on by 7:30am. Yuck.

Bonus: Soon I shall take my son to the Ben Franklin exhibit at the Minnesota History Center. Admission to the museum is on the spendy side, but free on Tuesday evenings from 5pm-8pm.
Plus: Think your apartment is small? You won’t after checking out 100 rooms in Hong Kong, each 100 square feet in size.
And: “I think self-destruction is honourable.” Oh Morrissey.